Tuesday, January 10, 2017

The Alien Gargoyle (video)

A gargoyle
on a historic 13th Century abbey has caused a social media sensation with its
resemblance to the monster from the Alien films.

A
photograph of the gargoyle at Paisley Abbey, which looks like one from the
1980s movie, has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter.

The
Reverend Alan Birss said most of the gargoyles were replaced during a
refurbishment in the early 1990s.

He thinks
that one of the stonemasons must have been having a bit of fun.

Mr. Birss,
minister at the abbey, said that 12 medieval gargoyles which had been on the
abbey for hundreds of years had to be taken down in 1991 because they had
"crumbled and were in a very bad state".

The purpose
of the grotesque figures was to take rain water away from the roof in the days
before down pipes.

Just one of
the original gargoyles was left outside the abbey to show how they would have
looked, although there are medieval grotesques inside the building.

Mr. Birss
said a stonemason from an Edinburgh firm was contracted to create the new
gargoyles.

"I
think it was a stonemason having a bit of fun," he said.

"Perhaps
the film was fairly new when they were carving this and if he was thinking of
an alien perhaps the alien from the film was his idea of an alien.

"I'm
sure he wasn't deliberately copying the alien in the film. It was just a
concept of an alien."

Mr. Birss
said an internet search showed that someone had pointed out the similarity as
far back as 1997.

"But
it obviously did not pick up and take off then like it has now," he said.

Church
officer Matthew McIntosh said: "It is a beautiful building. Paisley gets a
bad press but the abbey is the jewel in the crown.

"People
will be surprised and delighted by everything they see outside and
inside."

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